Feeling Groupie

Note:  Even though he legally changed his name to Ye in 2021, I will refer to him by his prior name, Kanye West, in this post, as his music is frequently released and credited to this name. At this point, I imagine it is safe to assume that most people reading this know the controversy that Kanye West has caused over the past 14-months regarding many statements that have been classified as anti-Semitic; while I will not go into the statements here, there were many that I found at least shocking, with many being extremely offensive.   He lost several endorsement deals and faced massive criticism, with it being easy to declare him “cancelled”.   It is worth noting that he still has a significant number of streams on various streaming services, where his music still remains.   That said, while several people acted like there was no way he could come back from this, I thought he could since he was big enough in both pop culture and music history.   Now that he has...

Over the last few years, I compiled a list of submissions I knew of for the Grammys; this year, I have organized it into a readable format and am releasing what I know (2,458 submissions).  While I didn't list the exact source for each (I'm not sure how public each of these sources want to be with this info), but these are largely from a combination of For Your Consideration posters and a group on GoldDerby, as well as some other miscellaneous sources.  Some submissions are blank; for these, I know the artist made a submission in the award, but am not sure what their submission is.  The nominees are listed in alphabetical order based on how Excel would sort, not necessarily how the ballot sorts.  While there are several categories that I know many nominees, there are others that I don't have as much knowledge with; there is a limit in how many categories a voter can vote for and view, so voters would only know so many awards submissions.  These are only a fracti...

One old adage I have always heard is that there is no such thing as bad publicity; of course there are many ways of wording this expression, but I have often doubted this ideology.  Even in situations where a negative could provide publicity, I always questioned if this helps, or if the press drives away too many people.  This appeared true in music in many situations until there was one massive test case:  “Try That in a Small Town” by Jason Aldean.  After the music video was released, the video was immensely controversial and faced accusations of promoting/endorsing (or at least accepting) racism, violence, and lynching.  That said, the song was embraced by many individuals (many of whom are typically more conservative), and the song ended up reaching number 1 in the U.S., giving Aldean his first chart topping hit.  However, it dropped to number 21 the following week, which was the largest drop for a number 1 song.  This has made me even more uncerta...

When looking at the festival lineups for this year, the first response is likely to judge the lineup based on personal interest in the artists; while I often discuss the lineups from a booking standpoint in the podcast, I also think about the artists I like in the lineups and if it is something that interests me.  Another reaction that might come up if looking at festival lineups is that a lot of major festivals have a lot of crossover between their lineups.  This year, notable artists that have been booked for several major festivals include Foo Fighters, Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Odesza, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lizzo, The Lumineers, The 1975, Alanis Morrisette, Maggie Rogers, Queens of the Stone Age, Noah Kahan, and 070 Shake.  While I have never discussed this in depth on either the blog or the podcast, this is not a new trend; in fact, there is a very logical reason most do this:  it is financially responsible. In general, it makes sense for a festival to target arti...

Many of the longtime readers of Feeling Groupie or listeners of Groupie and Harmony are probably aware of the fact that I am an avid concert fan who tries to see as many as possible depending on schedule and cost.  Something related to this that I don’t think I express enough is that I absolutely love concerts at smaller venues.  While it might be easy to cite seeing acts like August Burns Red or Frank Turner at venues that are standing room only, I’m referring to venues that are even smaller.  Some of my favorite memories from these type of venues are Silent Planet accidently breaking a mic stand and talking about Chinese food while waiting, Dying Wish encouraging a mosh pit of 4 people in an early show after Covid, This Wild Life asking for everyone to show pictures of their dogs, Bent Knee laughing and having the time of their life during their set, The World Is a Beautiful Place and I’m No Longer Afraid to Die (also known as The World Is a Beautiful Place…) performing...

Recently, I was looking at several music festivals to consider attending.  My general view of whether attending a festival is worthwhile is by comparing how much I would pay to see each act versus several festival expenses (I won’t go into exactly how I calculate it, because that is too much and will give an extra clue into how insane I am, but you get the idea).  I always felt like this was the most practical way to compare several festivals to determine which was the best for me, I came across an issue I never considered prior.  When calculating for one festival, I realized that I would say that I would spend more than $1200 on the acts performing at the festival.  While the festival did contain several acts that I loved, I realized that my manner of determining the prices was incorrect. There are typically two adages I have heard about festivals with very few in between:   festivals are overly expensive in price because of how much they cost or that festiva...

With Bridgeport, Connecticut’s Sound on Sound festival returning for a second year on September 30 th -October 1 st and there is going to be an announcement regarding the festival on Tuesday (though it might not be a lineup announcement), I compiled several acts that make sense for Sound on Sound.  While I discussed some acts in more depth on my most recent episode of Groupie and Harmony , I listed several acts that would make sense and grouped them into categories by the likelihood of being booked.  I did not consider any acts that performed the festival last year and often focused on acts that either make sense with the genres of the festival last year or feel like a natural act to consider.   Headliner, confirmed John Mayer   Headliner, possible These acts fulfill the festival organizer’s criteria of having music played on a Connecticut classic rock station (99.1 WPLR), not having played in CT for 20 years, and being a stadium size headliner. AC/DC ...